How to Lose a Decades-Old Customer

It was such a nice gesture. Time magazine offered to send a friend a free year’s subscription with my renewal sub. As I had grown up reading Time, I had been a loyal subscriber for many a year.

The initial subscriber, my dad, had passed on and mom was no longer getting the magazine, so a free subscription offer seemed like the perfect gift. Time even sent a little card to let the recipient know that their subscription was coming.

All very neat, tidy and marketing-wise. In the beginning, anyway.

Long after Christmas was over, no subscription arrived. It seemed a call to Time magazine was in order. The customer service rep had never even heard of the offer, let alone had a clue as to the status of my mom’s subscription. Much searching on her part eventually elicited a promise that the subscription would soon be on its way.

Months passed. Another Christmas went by, but not without still another offer from Time for a free subscription gift with every renewal.

An increasingly anxious 87-year-old now worried why her Christmas gift subscription of the past year hadn’t come. This was supposed to be a happy thing, remember? It should’ve been a way for Time to make a longtime reader feel important, and maybe even get a new subscriber out of the deal.

Not going well so far.

More calls, more Time reps unfamiliar with the offer, more promises. But no subscription appeared.

Mother finally did get something from Time, though — a bill for the nonexistent “free” subscription. Now the potential gift had turned into something very upsetting for an older person.

And the “gift” giver was angry — really angry.

Another call to Time magazine. This time to get the bill wiped out and cancel my subscription. Forget even thinking about ever recommending this publication to anyone; now I no longer wanted it in my house.

And I wanted a letter of apology sent to my mother. This was promised by yet another Time rep.

But received? Never.

Bad. Bad. Bad.

Salvaging the Situation

Let’s review how my Time magazine account could have been saved and a new subscriber added to the circulation base:

• Every phone rep should have been aware of any offers (such as the free subscription with renewal) and the dates they were in effect; this means that reps must have a centralized database, even if it’s manual, in which they can quickly look up offers.

• All customer contact info should be on that central database. The file also should contain a section that lets each rep add his or her comments, or, at a minimum, flag or code the customer record with the outcome or disposition of each call.

• Each customer rep I spoke with should have known about my previous calls and the actions taken or not taken.

• Customer complaints should actually be acted upon, quickly and correctly.

Virtually all of the new packaged software has the capability to add comments relative to each call from customers or inquirers. While there may be integration problems with processes such as billing and fulfillment, they usually can be resolved.

Phone reps must be empowered to solve problems and need to be trained to write succinct notes on what the customer was promised.

Reps also must have confidence that they can bump those problems up to a supervisor without fear of retribution.

Liz Kislik, an authority on customer service and organizational development, and president of Liz Kislik Associates in Rockville Centre, NY, states:

“Reps can be trained to identify situational characteristics, based on a string of ‘if/then’ statements, a decision table or a branching diagram, any of which could specify appropriate remedies for typical problems.”

Of course, employees who can be trusted to talk to customers at all also should be trusted to give credits or refunds (certainly up to, say, $25) or to create or extend subscriptions for at least equivalent amounts.

Enter John Hardy

Jewelry designer John Hardy illustrates well how to deepen customer loyalty, not destroy it.

I lost part of the gold design of a ring I purchased several years ago. I found John Hardy on the Web, filled out the online form for returning the ring, and sent the form and ring off to the company for free repair.

No original sales receipt necessary, no fine print. The form noted that all I needed to do was describe the circumstances, include the article in question and the problem would be resolved.

It took half the time promised for the ring to be returned, which wasn’t a bad start. But it got even better.

Enclosed with the ring was a postcard with a decidedly wearable John Hardy silver heart pin attached.

The copy read, “We are really sorry. Please accept this pin as our apology and as a small present for you. We have repaired and reconditioned your piece. The heart pin symbolizes our commitment to you, our customer.

“Thank you for your loyalty and your patience.”

Granted, John Hardy has a higher-dollar average order than Time magazine, but Time should have higher repeat orders and has the opportunity to cross-sell a contented customer to other Time properties.

Following this fine treatment, the first thing I did was set about buying another piece from the designer. Oh, and I filled out the enclosed postcard, which allowed me to join a birthday club and get a “surprise gift from John Hardy.”

So John Hardy has (1) acted correctly and promptly upon the initial customer contact; (2) given the customer two positive, unexpected experiences (speedy turnaround, free gift); and (3) found a friendly way to extend the contact (birthday club).

Perfect.

KATIE MULDOON is president of DM/catalog consulting firm Muldoon & Baer Inc., Tequesta, FL.